Pick Up My Poop, Owner

I really enjoy this sign every time I walk by it with Marco, so I thought maybe it would lighten your day as well.  I am still enjoying a state of semi-blissful ignorance here in Nihon, so I have no idea what the Japanese on this sign says (although I get the general idea).  Given said information gap, this sign causes me to ponder such questions as:   Is that dog crying?   Is that a telephone number in the corner?  Who could possibly want to field phone calls prompted by a sign such as this?  Is this sign available for purchase here?  If so, I imagine all the people in my 'rents' neighborhood might appreciate this on their lawn instead of that ugly yet direct hunched-dog-behind-the-international-"no"-symbol sign they all have.  You know the one:

BOOOR-ING!

Also, apparently I am not the only one who is fascinated with the many forms of passive aggressive human communication when it comes to the inauspicious lack of interest dogs have for using indoor plumbing: http://www.jenlouie.com/category/dog-poop/.  

Hurray for Hulu!

The intellectual property rights fairy has finally come to the rescue!!  Hulu is no longer blocked in Japan!

That is all.  I felt the discovery warranted a blog post.

My Isorated Dream

Shopping in Japan is so much fun that I have decided to share bits of it with all of you.
Below is the image of a T-shirt from a store reminiscent of Forever21.

Since it may be hard to decipher, here is the text exactly as it reads on this T-Shatsu:

"BEATING HEART

Labialize

REAL

THE END OF AN

Isorated Dream

NEVER LEAVE ME ALONE

Run in the sky of dreams and phantams go

 through the brightness a trace to

draw beyond a limit now"

Insignificant as these words are individually, they should mean something in toto. I am only human; I must search for meaning even where there is none! Why has someone gone to the trouble of printing these thirty-four words on a cotton-poly blend in various sizes and colors? …these thirty-four in particular, out of the quarter of a million (let’s say) or so that exist?

First, I checked Wikipedia, (of course). It is not a Haiku. Interesting.

Next I decided to look at the word which causes me the most pause in this whole mess, "labialize." Labialize is not a word in my stock vocabulary and its reading was conjuring all sorts of unfortunate images, so I decided to refer to the always-reliable, dictionary.com. Essentially it means to give a round character to a sound. Since we know native Japanese speakers to have some issues with r’s and l’s (one needs not look any further than this very T-shirt for a perfect example) I checked the three other permutations of this word and found that none are legit, so we can safely conclude that this T-shirt is trying to tell us something about pronunciation. Dead end.

If I think about this anymore, my head might explode. Those crafty Japanese…is this a step in their plan for world domination?

My conclusion: This shirt clearly belongs at a poetry reading, Haiku or not.

It's like Colorado, but...

So today I caught a glimpse of the real Northern Japan and I am...well...concerned.

5:50 AM :
I wake up to find white stuff everywhere! 
(If you look closely, you will see a very confused Marco).

 8:46 AM:

Snow-Rain...Ranow?....Snain?...It is both raining and snowing at the same time.  You notice the snow on the ground has melted due to the rain but there are big white flakes in the air.

 

12:06 PM:
No sign of snow or rain 3 hours prior.  I wouldn't have believed me either so I documented it:

1:50 PM: Earthquake, Magnitude 4.1.  I can't capture that with my Olympus, so you'll have to take my word for it.  Or you could check the Japan Meteorological Agency.  My feelings will only be a little hurt.

Japan has been busy today!  I guess that makes one of us.